Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Chart of the day: The Facebook Factor

Some question whether the surge in interest is a passing fad fueled by frenzy over iPhone apps and LinkedIn’s soaring initial public offering, just as enrollment in computer science spiked during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.

But educators say this time is different.

“What we’re seeing now is a better-motivated upsurge,” said Ed Lazowska, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, “students who understand that they really need to know this material.”

And the movie can’t hurt, he said, because at least it has transformed the image of a programmer. Computer scientists are finally getting the treatment that doctors got with “Grey’s Anatomy” and reporters with “All the President’s Men.”

“We’ve been saying for 15 years, ‘If we could just get a show like the lawyer and doctor shows that make being a software person sexy,’ ” Mr. Lazowska said.